Virgin Galactic, the spaceflight company within the Virgin Group, made a big leap in the race of getting tourists to space.

U.S. authorities have granted the space tourism company owned by billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson a license by to resume testing of its rocket plane after its fatal crash in 2014.

The operator license for SpaceShipTwo granted by the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation will allow Virgin Galactic to start the basic groundwork for regular trips to space.

Southport, Connecticut based Sturm, Ruger & Co. Inc reported thirty four percent increase in its second-quarter profit to $23.5 million. The gain is mainly attributed to a surge in demand for firearms, mostly for the company's new products.

Ruger also reported a jump of 19.4 percent in firearms sales to $166.3 million.

The company said on Tuesday, Michael Fifer, and its CEO of ten years plans to retire on May 9. Fifer will continue as vice chairman.

It was two months ago that Governor Jerry Brown's administration decided to relax drought rule in California but a new set of data show that careful Californians still continue saving significant amounts of water.

Data released on Tuesday by the State Water Resources Control Board showed that all over the California, urban residents trimmed their water use 21.5 percent in June when compared to the same period in 2013. In May this year, the residents saved 28.1 percent water by cutting down their usage.

Coming Friday, August 5, sales tax holiday kicks off in Florida and will end on August 7. However, this year many items did not make it to the tax exemption list and many failed to get an attractive discount.

The tax holidays are mainly in honor of the new school year when many families find it a burden to get new school supplies. Initially there were discussions regarding doing away with the tax holiday this year but somehow, it survived through budget cuts.

Emergency state funding is being requested by a New York lawmaker to help Amsterdam town in Montgomery County repair its age old sewer system which has faced system failure and leaking pipe problems in recent times.

On Thursday, Angelo Santabarbara, D-Rotterdam, wrote an open letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo requesting him to release emergency funds to "address immediate repairs needed to the sanitary sewer infrastructure along Forest Avenue."

On Friday the first day of the three day event, large number of bargain hunters arrived at retail shops and malls in Nashville, Tennessee, as the state celebrates its eleventh yearly sales tax holiday. The time matched that back-to-school shopping season.

After the deal, NextEra will get access to the biggest network of power lines in Texas. The company gets success after almost one year's effort to buy Oncor. NextEra's shares moved up 0.5 percent during morning trading hours.